


How Hearts Bloom

by songofproserpine



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Language of Flowers, Light Angst, M/M, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2018-12-16 15:23:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11831523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songofproserpine/pseuds/songofproserpine
Summary: Tumblr prompt: "Joker giving flowers that mean a lot of things and Akechi's reactions over the months, culminating with him seemingly coldly rejecting them close to the time he's supposed to kill Joker?"





	How Hearts Bloom

“You don’t mind my coming here so often, do you?” Goro asked, folding his hands as he hunched over the counter.

Ren scratched the back of his neck. “That depends.”

“On what?”

“On what you’re coming here for.”

Goro chewed on the inside of his cheek. “For the atmosphere,” he heard himself say. He heard himself laugh, too. Strange, that he could slip into this mood with ease. It had to be because of _him_. “For the coffee, too. What else are cafés good for?”

“I dunno,” Ren said, scrubbing at the stainless counter. He avoided Goro’s eyes. “The company?”

Goro gave his heart until the count of ten to stop pounding so hard. “That’s true,” he said, pretending to give it some thought, pretending that his hopes weren’t leaping eagerly at the prospect that he was wanted _here_ , of all places. “I wouldn’t mind coming back for all of those things–the atmosphere, the coffee… and maybe you?”

Ren turned to look at him.

“If you aren’t too busy, of course,” Goro added, smiling. He felt his face stretch to accommodate the expression.

An awful lapse of silence passed. Then, just as Ren was about to answer, Goro’s phone began to buzz. He fished it out of his pocket–and his heart sank.

Of course his father would interrupt what would be the nicest conversation Goro had in practically his entire life. Of course. Goro had a stray dog’s luck with none of the pity. “Excuse me, I need to take this.”

“Take your time,” Ren said, waving him off.

The conversation was brusque, brisk, and better left ignored. Goro kept his face in tightly laced control as he walked back into the café, making sure that his expression was light, breezy, with just the hint of a smile.

He went to take his seat at the counter when something caught his eye. A single flower sat on the edge of the mug’s saucer. The bright, impossibly vivid purple petals were a stark contrast to the bone white china and the small brown blotch of spilled coffee.

Unease twisted in his belly like a knife. “Why is this here?”

“It’s a gift,” Ren said. He spoke just the way he looked: dead-set and head on. Only his eyes were dark. His words were light, soft, evenly said– and so deceptive. That voice made Goro’s chest ache; each word he heard Ren speak smashed up against his heart like glass beneath a hammer.

Goro picked up the flower by its stem and examined it close. “What should I do with it?” he asked.

Ren shrugged, already turning away. “Keep it if you want. Maybe it’ll cheer you up or give you something nice to think about for a while.”

Goro didn’t say anything. Then, “Where did you even get this?”

“At the shop.”

He frowned. “What, today?”

Ren nodded. “I work at a florist every now and then, picking up hours here and there.” He paused before adding, in a lower, muted tone, “You don’t have to take it if you don’t want to.”

“No.” Goro closed his hands around the flower, taking care not to crush the petals. The flower was so bright, so… brave, so bold it was almost garish. But that was only in its nature; the flower couldn’t help but be itself. “No, I’ll take it. I mean–thanks very much.” It wasn’t often he got a gift; he could count them on two fingers. His powers, and now this.

Ren nodded again, his lips hitching up into a sideways smile. “Don’t mention it,” he said.

 

 

Later, after he had returned home, and spent five minutes staring at the flower as it leaned up against the water in a little glass cup, Goro opened up a new tab in his browser and described the flower as best he could.

 _Aster_ , the search results said. _Higher classification: astereae. Rank: genus._

_Did you know? Aster symbolizes patience, love, good luck, and daintiness. Also: “I will think on it.”_

And now Goro had something new to think on, too.

* * *

 

The next flower, when it came weeks later, was no less vivid and bright than the first. It sat stemless inside of Goro’s empty coffee mug, its indigo bright blue petals fading inward to bone white, then daisy yellow at the center.

“You’ll take that to go?” Ren asked, and then, as if his smile weren’t bad enough, he actually _winked_.

Goro scraped his teeth against the inside of his cheek just to have something else to feel. “If it’s no trouble,” he said before he lost his nerve.

“No trouble at all,” Ren reassured him. “It’s my pleasure.” 

 

 

 _Convolvulus_ , the search results said. _Common name: morning glory. The Victorian meaning was love or mortality. Current meaning: bonds._

Goro’s heart pounded against his ribs like a hammer determined to turn bone into dust.

* * *

 

Weeks went by. Despite his doubts and unease, Goro stopped by Leblanc’s almost every day, as often as he could spare as the summer marched forward in its dreadful, suffocating lurch. He barely felt the sun anymore; there was something oppressive and heavy about the light and the heat, and rainy days only seemed to smother him more.

Towards the middle of August, as he sat brooding quietly in a corner booth, Goro received both his cup of coffee and a plate full of flowers. He recognized these flowers well enough; red and white roses were arranged in halos around the plate. In the center sat a blue hyacinth as large as Goro’s fist.

“You’re lucky I don’t have allergies,” he said before Ren could walk away.

Ren blinked. Goro had the distinct pleasure of finally seeing the boy taken by surprise. “I didn’t even think of that,” he said.

It was Goro’s turn to smile and reassure. The look came so easily to him now; he didn’t like to think why. “Like I said–you’re lucky.”

He felt terribly stupid carrying a plate of flowers home with him. And even though they were carefully wrapped up to avoid damage or blowing away in the wind, Goro couldn’t help but worry that they would shrivel and wither the further they got from Leblanc. There was a warmth to the shop that seemed deliberately absent from the rest of Goro’s life, as if he removed all comfort just by being… well, anywhere.

The further he got from the cafe, the more the warmth in his chest faded. The ore of his heart dulled back to a dim, hard stone.

On the way home, Goro carefully typed the flower names into his phone, swaying with the movements of the subway train.

_Blue hyacinth–constancy. Red and white roses, together–unity._

He didn’t move. He didn’t breathe. It was as if a hand reached up and seized his throat in its fist.

* * *

 

Goro didn’t return to Leblanc for a month.

* * *

 

Ever since he was dubbed the second coming of the Detective Prince, Goro was used to receiving strange things in the mail. Fan letters, declarations of love, carefully coded hate mail that bordered on menacing threats, even the occasional confession of crimes. But today was the first time he ever received—

“Flowers…?” He read the card taped to the tall, thin vase. There was no name attached, but he felt safe in guessing who would be so bold, so thoughtful, so damned infuriating.

Goro recognized the writing in the card–only one other person had both a sloppy and proud penmanship. “ _Sweet william and Jacob’s ladder_ ,” it said. “’ _Smile, and come down to me._ ’”

A few minutes later, Goro heard the buzzer to his door hum to life. “Yes?” he heard his voice say. His thoughts were miles away, his hopes flying even further than that.

“So,” he heard Ren’s voice clearly through the crackle. “What do you think?”

“About what?”

“The flowers.” A pause. “And the card.”

Goro closed his eyes. “Why didn’t you just bring them up yourself, if you were going to hang around somewhere close by?”

“I wanted to give you some time to think,” Ren said.

Goro’s heart ached with a raw throb. “I can’t,” he heard himself say, the words coming out thick and wet. A voice for the tears he would not shed. “Not today. I’m–I’m busy.”

“Take your time,” Ren said, his voice as soft as a kiss. “You know where to find me.”

Goro stared at the speaker long after it had gone silent. The sun marched across the bare white walls in long, thick chunks. He watched as the shadows grew longer, the light outside fading, threadbare and weak.

 _Smile, and come down to me_.

_Smile, and come down to me._

_Come down to me._

Goro lifted the vase in his hand and hurled it with all his strength. The glass smashed against the far wall, matching the shattered shards that bared their razor edges inside his chest.

* * *

 

Towards the end of September, Goro ducked into Leblanc one last time.

“No matter what happens,” Ren said by way of greeting, his voice low and rough, “I want you to know that we’re still friends. You got that?”

Goro said nothing. He simply watched the other boy in silence, studying his expression, the twist of his lips, the gleam in his eyes. Ren made a gesture, and Goro pulled his hands back with a little shake of his head.

“Sometimes you talk like you’re expecting the world to end,” he said.

“Maybe I am. Have you _seen_ what’s happening to the world lately?”

“I try not to. It’s too much to think about.” Goro forced a smile. It came out crooked and wrong, stilted, broken. “I’ve got enough on my plate as it is, wouldn’t you say?”

Ren cleared away Goro’s half-finished coffee in silence and left the other boy alone to think. He waited until Sakura-san, grumbling and slouchy, muttered about going out for a smoke before reaching out again.

Another plate of flowers slid across the counter and into Goro’s view. A deep, maroon red stem curled delicately around small white and green sprigs of the smallest flowers Goro had ever seen. But it was the red flower that held his attention. Oh how heavy it looked, how somber, like a willow bleeding.

“I’ll save you half the trouble,” Ren said, closing his hands into fists that framed the plate. “Amaranth and honeysuckle.”

Goro pulled out his phone in silence and typed the names in.

 _Hopeless_ , the search results said. _Not heartless. Devoted affection._

Goro’s heart thundered in his ears. He lowered his phone as a familiar ache rose up in his chest. He knew the name for it, knew the name and reason that this persistent throb refused to fade despite his demands to do just that. He also knew who was responsible for making such a mess of him this way.

“You could save me all the trouble and just get rid of it,” Goro heard himself say. He made himself look into Ren’s eyes as he continued, each word like a knife that wounded just to be said. “Put them right in the trash. That’s where they all wind up in the end, anyway.”

Goro closed his hands into fists, lowered his eyes, and waited. Waited for Ren to take the bait, waited for Ren to fall for yet another lie. But the plate stayed where it was, and Goro could not bring himself to apologize or take the words back. He would stick by them, no matter how guilt gnawed hatefully at his heart, and no matter how hunched and vulnerable Ren’s back looked as he left.

* * *

 

Later, much later, when the dark and the cold and the quiet like the grave had its fill of him–when the strange miracle of life clashed and came out the victor against the cold, quiet grip of death–Goro opened his eyes and sat up in his hospital bed.

The world was a riot of color that took its time to settle into shapes. When it did, he noticed two things first: Pink carnations stood in a vase next to his bed, and Ren sat hunched in a nearby chair, dozing. His glasses were askew, and his unruly dark hair hung lank over his pale face. Goro tried to reach out to brush a few strands of that ridiculous hair aside, only to be greeted with a fresh wave of pain.

He must have said something, must have made some type of noise or a sharp sound, because Ren jolted awake, almost throwing himself out of his chair.

“Goro!” Ren’s hands curled around the metal bars of his bed. Tears filled up his large, black eyes and spilled down his cheeks.

What a mess–and all for him. Goro took a long breath and turned to the flowers in the vase. “What’s this supposed to mean?” he asked. His voice was straw thin, a husk of its former self.

Ren waited until Goro looked at him again, his eyes darting all over the other boy’s face, as if he sought to memorize the wonder of him. “I will never forget you,” he said, his voice low and heavy, like a wounded heart.

Goro turned his hand over on the bed and waited. Ren’s fingers slipped over his palm and around the back of his knuckles, squeezing hard enough to hurt. It was a familiar ache, different from the months of slow suffocation, different even from the agony of returning to a life he wasn’t even sure he wanted.

“I should be so lucky,” Goro said, and he waited, eager to hear Ren laugh. But something must have gone wrong in the translation from thought to speech; Ren only continued to cry, smearing the tears off his cheeks with an impatient flick of his free hand.

Sleep was coming on fast–Goro was tired, so tired, every bone in his body heavy with the weight of being, but his heart was lighter, brighter–free of the hammer and free of the stone that dragged it down. “Stick with a rose next time,” he heard himself say. “Red. Red and white, together.”

Goro woke again three days later to what looked like a garden of roses scattered across his bed. Yellow, pink, purple, orange and red, red, deep, blood bright, fresh wound red.

“This is a very expensive way to say I love you,” he said and that, finally, brought a smile to Ren’s face.

“All you had to do was ask,” the other boy said, and he leaned in for the first of many long, tender kisses.


End file.
